If you’re new to programming, you might not have all the technical skills just yet BUT you have plenty of other skills that will speak to your competence and ability to contribute while you continue to develop those skills. Checking your own boxes is about recognizing your strengths and the value they bring to a potential new team. Once you have a list of the skills you already possess, think about:
- How your skills make a company money, save a company money, or save a company time (because time = money)
- How to showcase your skills so that it is clear what they are and in a way that is easily accessible and digestible for people making hiring decisions (in my case, a blog that was publicly available on the internet for anyone to see)
- How the skills you have can be employed in service to developing the skills you lack that will be important to the role you’re seeking
I started my blog because I enjoyed writing and I wanted to share it with the world. I also wanted it to be entirely personalized, which got me started writing code. While working on it I realized I enjoyed writing code more than writing posts. Over time, I realized it was the perfect medium to showcase my skill set: copywriting, photography, research, and teaching - and to convince potential employers that all those seemingly-irrelevant skills were exactly why I was the candidate they were looking for. I turned my blog from a playground to a showroom by focusing on technical topics, describing my successes and failures, writing to an audience of beginners like myself, and adding a few more advanced touches to demonstrate my growing technical skills.
My blog got me noticed at networking events, interviewers brought it up during interviews, and the very act of working on it bolstered my confidence. I can confidently say that I used my blog to land my first job in tech, and I look forward to helping others develop their own strategy to make the same smooth transition.
